Growing numbers of persons require dialysis due to acute or end stage renal disease. The majority of dialysis conducted in the United States involves the patient occupying a treatment facility for a period of up to about 6 hours as often as 2 or 3 times a week. Only a small fraction of people requiring diaylsis are able to dialyze themselves effectively at home. Still fewer people requiring dialysis are able to travel, since the attendant machinery is cumbersome.
Most prior art systems require several pumps in order to complete treatment. In general, there is required at least a blood pump, a dialysate pump and a pump for an anti clotting agent. The requirement of no less than two distinct pumps is a serious obstacle to providing a dialysis system sufficiently compact to enable free movement of the patient requiring the treatment. Another factor in the design of a dialysis system is the extraordinary cost of all the multiple components, and a significant factor in designing systems for developing countries is to reduce the cost of manufacture and maintenance to enable countries less affluent than the United States to provide the required number of systems to accommodate all persons requiring dialysis.